One of my favourite news stories of 2007 has to be the jackass pictured above. A couple weeks ago Amanda came home from work and I asked her if she’d heard about the shark attack at Bondi Beach which was all over the news. She hadn’t. So I told her the story of the guy who was bitten by a shark, but survived after fighting it off, who then passed out on the rocks overnight and was found the following morning by his girlfriend.

Amanda thought the story was weird. And after saying the words out loud, so did I. I mean the girlfriend doesn’t find him ’til morning? No calls to the police or some sort of search and rescue squard? In the days that followed the full story came out. There was no shark. Just some criminal who thought he could get away with a huge lie (it would have been the first shark attack at Bondi in 70 years). The cuts were in fact sustained when he “damaged a window.”

Loser.

This guy, however, was not so lucky. He actually was bitten on the ass by a shark just a day before he was to be a best man in a wedding! A more superstitious man might wonder about “omens” or “signs” but I won’t. Nope. Being nearly eaten by a shark the day before a wedding is not a metaphor of any sort.

Then back at Bondi an endangered shark was killed in a shark net. This was followed by shark sightings at Palm Beach on Boxing Day. Of course, being summer holidays, all these shark incidents, real or not, has led the media to declare this summer the Summer of the Shark and airing empty news stories like this one.

Remember, you don’t have to be faster than the shark. Just faster than the person next to you.

I’ve often said to Amanda that I’d be pretty choked if I missed a white Christmas in Vancouver. It seldom happens so I never really thought it could possibly happen without me.

And then this year it did. And it hurts.

Stupid weather.

Can someone give me a valid reason why Australian television stations insist on starting a show whenever they feel like it? If you say 30 Rock is on at 10:30, why does it start at 10:37?

This really annoys me. Get a watch.

It’s been summer for officially ten days now which means people are spending more time outdoors these days. And this means that Hunting Season 07/08 is also underway. Doing the hunting early this season include:

Hammerhead sharks in Cronulla: Do you think they were wearing Aussie flags?

and

Snakes on golf courses!: I thought of my dad and step-mum when I read this one. My step-mum said during her visit here in April that there is no way she’d be gardening here in Australia (she is terrified of snakes). But what about her other outdoor pastimes? Given the amount of time they both spend in the rough I would assume golf would be out as well.

There’s something you don’t see every day here in Sydney – Canadian beer in the recycling bin of our building!

Imported! How exotic!